At the threshold of Gottlieb’s
house a number of the chief burgesses of Cologne had
corporated spontaneously to condole with him.
As he came near, they raised a hubbub of gratulation.
Strong were the expressions of abhorrence and disgust
of Werner’s troop in which these excellent citizens
clothed their outraged feelings; for the insult to
Gottlieb was the insult of all. The Rhinestream
taxes were provoking enough to endure; but that the
licence of these free-booting bands should extend
to the homes of free and peaceful men, loyal subjects
of the Emperor, was a sign that the evil had reached
from pricks to pokes, as the saying went, and must
now be met as became burgesses of ancient Cologne,
and by joint action destroyed.
‘In! in, all of you!’
said Gottlieb, broadening his smile to suit the many.
’We ’ll talk about that in-doors.
Meantime, I’ve got a hero to introduce to you:
flesh and blood! no old woman’s coin and young
girl’s dream-o’day: the honest thing,
and a rarity, my masters. All that over some
good Rhine-juice from above Bacharach. In, and
welcome, friends!’
Gottlieb drew the stranger along with
him under the carved old oak-wood portals, and the
rest paired, and reverentially entered in his wake.
Margarita, to make up for this want of courtesy, formed
herself the last of the procession. She may have
had another motive, for she took occasion there to
whisper something to Farina, bringing sun and cloud
over his countenance in rapid flushes. He seemed
to remonstrate in dumb show; but she, with an attitude
of silence, signified her wish to seal the conversation,
and he drooped again. On the door step she paused
a moment, and hung her head pensively, as if moved
by a reminiscence. The youth had hurried away
some strides. Margarita looked after him.
His arms were straightened to his flanks, his hands
clenched, and straining out from the wrist. He
had the aspect of one tugging against the restraint
of a chain that suddenly let out link by link to his
whole force.
‘Farina!’ she called;
and wound him back with a run. ’Farina!
You do not think me ungrateful? I could not tell
my father in the crowd what you did for me. He
shall know. He will thank you. He does not
understand you now, Farina. He will. Look
not so sorrowful. So much I would say to you.’
So much was rushing on her mind, that
her maidenly heart became unruly, and warned her to
beware.
The youth stood as if listening to
a nightingale of the old woods, after the first sweet
stress of her voice was in his ear. When she ceased,
he gazed into her eyes. They were no longer deep
and calm like forest lakes; the tender-glowing blue
quivered, as with a spark of the young girl’s
soul, in the beams of the moon then rising.
‘Oh, Margarita!’ said
the youth, in tones that sank to sighs: ’what
am I to win your thanks, though it were my life for
such a boon!’
He took her hand, and she did not
withdraw it. Twice his lips dwelt upon those
pure fingers.
’Margarita: you forgive
me: I have been so long without hope. I have
kissed your hand, dearest of God’s angels!’
She gently restrained the full white
hand in his pressure.
’Margarita! I have thought
never before death to have had this sacred bliss.
I am guerdoned in advance for every grief coming before
death.’
She dropped on him one look of a confiding
softness that was to the youth like the opened gate
of the innocent garden of her heart.
’You pardon me, Margarita?
I may call you my beloved? strive, wait, pray, hope,
for you, my star of life?’
Her face was so sweet a charity!
’Dear love! one word! or
say nothing, but remain, and move not. So beautiful
you are! Oh, might I kneel to you here; dote on
you; worship this white hand for ever.’
The colour had passed out of her cheeks
like a blissful western red leaving rich paleness
in the sky; and with her clear brows levelled at him,
her bosom lifting more and more rapidly, she struggled
against the charm that was on her, and at last released
her hand.
’I must go. I cannot stay.
Pardon you? Who might not be proud of your love! Farewell!’
She turned to move away, but lingered
a step from him, hastily touching her bosom and either
hand, as if to feel for a brooch or a ring. Then
she blushed, drew the silver arrow from the gathered
gold-shot braids above her neck, held it out to him,
and was gone.
Farina clutched the treasure, and
reeled into the street. Half a dozen neighbours
were grouped by the door.
’What ‘s the matter in
Master Groschen’s house now?’ one asked,
as he plunged into the midst of them.
‘Matter?’ quoth the joy-drunken
youth, catching at the word, and mused off into raptures;
’There never was such happiness! ’Tis
paradise within, exile without. But what exile!
A star ever in the heavens to lighten the road and
cheer the path of the banished one’; and he
loosened his vest and hugged the cold shaft on his
breast.
‘What are you talking and capering
at, fellow?’ exclaimed another: ’Can’t
you answer about those shrieks, like a Christian, you
that have just come out of the house? Why, there’s
shrieking now! It ’s a woman. Thousand
thunders! it sounds like the Frau Lisbeth’s voice.
What can be happening to her?’
‘Perhaps she’s on fire,’
was coolly suggested between two or three.
‘Pity to see the old house burnt,’ remarked
one.
‘House! The woman, man! the woman!’
‘Ah!’ replied the other,
an ancient inhabitant of Cologne, shaking his head,
‘the house is oldest!’
Farina, now recovering his senses,
heard shrieks that he recognized as possible in the
case of Aunt Lisbeth dreading the wickedness of an
opposing sex, and alarmed by the inrush of old Gottlieb’s
numerous guests. To confirm him, she soon appeared,
and hung herself halfway out of one of the upper windows,
calling desperately to St. Ursula for aid. He
thanked the old lady in his heart for giving him a
pretext to enter Paradise again; but before even love
could speed him, Frau Lisbeth was seized and dragged
remorselessly out of sight, and he and the rosy room
darkened together.
Farina twice strode off to the Rhine-stream;
as many times he returned. It was hard to be
away from her. It was harder to be near and not
close. His heart flamed into jealousy of the
stranger. Everything threatened to overturn his
slight but lofty structure of bliss so suddenly shot
into the heavens. He had but to remember that
his hand was on the silver arrow, and a radiance broke
upon his countenance, and a calm fell upon his breast.
‘It was a plight of her troth to me,’ mused
the youth. ’She loves me! She would
not trust her frank heart to speak. Oh, generous
young girl! what am I to dare hope for such a prize?
for I never can be worthy. And she is one who,
giving her heart, gives it all. Do I not know
her? How lovely she looked thanking the stranger!
The blue of her eyes, the warm-lighted blue, seemed
to grow full on the closing lids, like heaven’s
gratitude. Her beauty is wonderful. What
wonder, then, if he loves her? I should think
him a squire in his degree. There are squires
of high birth and low.’
So mused Farina with his arms folded
and his legs crossed in the shadow of Margarita’s
chamber. Gradually he fell into a kind of hazy
doze. The houses became branded with silver arrows.
All up the Cathedral stone was a glitter, and dance,
and quiver of them. In the sky mazed confusion
of arrowy flights and falls. Farina beheld himself
in the service of the Emperor watching these signs,
and expecting on the morrow to win glory and a name
for Margarita. Glory and the name now won, old
Gottlieb was just on the point of paternally blessing
them, when a rude pat aroused him from the delicious
moon-dream.
‘Hero by day! house-guard by
night! That tells a tale,’ said a cheerful
voice.
The moon was shining down the Cathedral
square and street, and Farina saw the stranger standing
solid and ruddy before him. He was at first prompted
to resent such familiar handling, but the stranger’s
face was of that bland honest nature which, like the
sun, wins everywhere back a reflection of its own
kindliness.
‘You are right,’ replied Farina; ‘so
it is!’
’Pretty wines inside there,
and a rare young maiden. She has a throat like
a nightingale, and more ballads at command than a piper’s
wallet. Now, if I hadn’t a wife at home.’
‘You’re married?’
cried Farina, seizing the stranger’s hand.
’Surely; and my lass can say
something for herself on the score of brave looks,
as well as the best of your German maids here, trust
me.’
Farina repressed an inclination to
perform a few of those antics which violent joy excites,
and after rushing away and back, determined to give
his secret to the stranger.
‘Look,’ said he in a whisper,
that opens the private doors of a confidence.
But the stranger repeated the same
word still more earnestly, and brought Farina’s
eyes on a couple of dark figures moving under the
Cathedral.
‘Some lamb’s at stake
when the wolves are prowling,’ he added:
’’Tis now two hours to the midnight.
I doubt if our day’s work be over till we hear
the chime, friend.’
’What interest do you take in
the people of this house that you watch over them
thus?’ asked Farina.
The stranger muffled a laugh in his beard.
’An odd question, good sooth.
Why, in the first place, we like well whatso we have
done good work for. That goes for something.
In the second, I’ve broken bread in this house.
Put down that in the reckoning. In the third;
well! in the third, add up all together, and the sum
total’s at your service, young sir.’
Farina marked him closely. There
was not a spot on his face for guile to lurk in, or
suspicion to fasten on. He caught the stranger’s
hand.
’You called me friend just now.
Make me your friend. Look, I was going to say:
I love this maiden! I would die for her.
I have loved her long. This night she has given
me a witness that my love is not vain. I am poor.
She is rich. I am poor, I said, and feel richer
than the Kaiser with this she has given me! Look,
it is what our German girls slide in their back-hair,
this silver arrow!’
‘A very pretty piece of heathenish
wear!’ exclaimed the stranger.
’Then, I was going to say tell
me, friend, of a way to win honour and wealth quickly;
I care not at how rare a risk. Only to wealth,
or high baronry, will her father give her!’
The stranger buzzed on his moustache
in a pause of cool pity, such as elders assume when
young men talk of conquering the world for their mistresses:
and in truth it is a calm of mind well won!
’Things look so brisk at home
here in the matter of the maiden, that I should say,
wait a while and watch your chance. But you’re
a boy of pluck: I serve in the Kaiser’s
army, under my lord: the Kaiser will be here
in three days. If you ’re of that mind then,
I doubt little you may get posted well: but,
look again! there’s a ripe brew yonder.
Marry, you may win your spurs this night even; who
knows? ’S life! there’s a tall
fellow joining those two lurkers.’
‘Can you see into the murk shadow, Sir Squire?’
’Ay! thanks to your Styrian
dungeons, where I passed a year’s apprenticeship:
“I learnt to watch the
rats and mice
At play, with never a candle-end.
They play’d so well; they sang so nice;
They dubb’d me comrade; called me friend!”
So says the ballad of our red-beard
king’s captivity. All evil has a good:
“When our toes and chins
are up,
Poison plants make sweetest cup”
as the old wives mumble to us when
we’re sick. Heigho! would I were in the
little island well home again, though that were just
their song of welcome to me, as I am a Christian.’
‘Tell me your name, friend,’ said Farina.
’Guy’s my name, young
man: Goshawk’s my title. Guy the Goshawk!
so they called me in my merry land. The cap sticks
when it no longer fits. Then I drove the arrow,
and was down on my enemy ere he could ruffle a feather.
Now, what would be my nickname?
“A change so sad, and
a change so bad,
Might set both Christian and heathen a sighing:
Change is a curse, for it’s all for
the worse:
Age creeps up, and youth is flying!”
and so on, with the old song.
But here am I, and yonder’s a game that wants
harrying; so we’ll just begin to nose about them
a bit.’
He crossed to the other side of the
street, and Farina followed out of the moonlight.
The two figures and the taller one were evidently
observing them; for they also changed their position
and passed behind an angle of the Cathedral.
’Tell me how the streets cross
all round the Cathedral you know the city,’
said the stranger, holding out his hand.
Farina traced with his finger a rough
map of the streets on the stranger’s hand.
’Good! that’s how my lord
always marks the battlefield, and makes me show him
the enemy’s posts. Forward, this way!’
He turned from the Cathedral, and
both slid along close under the eaves and front hangings
of the houses. Neither spoke. Farina felt
that he was in the hands of a skilful captain, and
only regretted the want of a weapon to make harvest
of the intended surprise; for he judged clearly that
those were fellows of Werner’s band on the look-out.
They wound down numberless intersections of narrow
streets with irregular-built houses standing or leaning
wry-faced in row, here a quaint-beamed cottage, there
almost a mansion with gilt arms, brackets, and devices.
Oil-lamps unlit hung at intervals by the corners, near
a pale Christ on crucifix. Across the passages
they hung alight. The passages and alleys were
too dusky and close for the moon in her brightest ardour
to penetrate; down the streets a slender lane of white
beams could steal: ‘In all conscience,’
as the good citizens of Cologne declared, ’enough
for those heathen hounds and sons of the sinful who
are abroad when God’s own blessed lamp is out.’
So, when there was a moon, the expense of oil was
saved to the Cologne treasury, thereby satisfying the
virtuous.
After incessant doubling here and
there, listening to footfalls, and themselves eluding
a chase which their suspicious movements aroused,
they came upon the Rhine. A full flood of moonlight
burnished the knightly river in glittering scales,
and plates, and rings, as headlong it rolled seaward
on from under crag and banner of old chivalry and
rapine. Both greeted the scene with a burst of
pleasure. The grey mist of flats on the south
side glimmered delightful to their sight, coming from
that drowsy crowd and press of habitations; but the
solemn glory of the river, delaying not, heedless,
impassioned-pouring on in some sublime conference
between it and heaven to the great marriage of waters,
deeply shook Farina’s enamoured heart. The
youth could not restrain his tears, as if a magic
wand had touched him. He trembled with love;
and that delicate bliss which maiden hope first showers
upon us like a silver rain when she has taken the
shape of some young beauty and plighted us her fair
fleeting hand, tenderly embraced him.
As they were emerging into the spaces
of the moon, a cheer from the stranger arrested Farina.
’Seest thou? on the wharf there!
that is the very one, the tallest of the three.
Lakin! but we shall have him.’
Wrapt in a long cloak, with low pointed
cap and feather, stood the person indicated.
He appeared to be meditating on the flow of the water,
unaware of hostile presences, or quite regardless of
them. There was a majesty in his height and air,
which made the advance of the two upon him more wary
and respectful than their first impulse had counselled.
They could not read his features, which were mantled
behind voluminous folds: all save a pair of very
strange eyes, that, even as they gazed directly downward,
seemed charged with restless fiery liquid.
The two were close behind him:
Guy the Goshawk prepared for one of those fatal pounces
on the foe that had won him his title. He consulted
Farina mutely, who Nodded readiness; but the instant
after, a cry of anguish escaped from the youth:
’Lost! gone! lost! Where
is it? where! the arrow! The Silver Arrow!
My Margarita!’
Ere the echoes of his voice had ceased
lamenting into the distance, they found themselves
alone on the wharf.